Death Everywhere, And Then A Child`s Cry

DETROIT — The grass still was on fire, pieces of charred bodies were everywhere and a state trooper next to Dr. John Girardot mumbled that it reminded him of Vietnam.

Then from under a burned and twisted pile of metal, human bodies and airplane seats, Girardot said, came a child`s loud cry.

The discovery of 4-year-old Cecilia Cichan Sunday night in the wreckage of Northwest Flight 255, apparently shielded from the crash`s inferno by her mother`s body, brought hope to rescuers like Girardot.

In the first moments after the plane`s fatal descent at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, they hoped they would find other survivors. There was none.

By clinging to her life against awesome odds, the brown-eyed youngster in long blond braids gives relief and hope to relatives, who thought the family had been wiped out.

An assistant professor of botany at Arizona State University, Michael Cichan, 32, was going home with his family--his wife, Paula, 33; son, David, 6; and Cecilia--after a lecture in Ohio and a visit with relatives in Pennsylvania.

``When we realized we had lost three instead of four, we were very relieved,`` said Anthony Cichan, 59, who had hurried from Pennsylvania to a hospital in Ann Arbor to see if his ``tough`` granddaughter was alive.

Cecilia suffered burns over 30 percent of her body, a number of cuts, and a broken left leg.

Since she was discovered in the first minutes after the crash, her condition has steadily improved. By late Tuesday the youngster, who remained unconscious, was responding to stimuli, hospital officials said. Her condition went from critical to serious but guarded.

If she continued to improve, officials at C.S. Mott Children`s Hospital said, she might be taken off her respirator in a few days.

As word of her survival has spread, there has been an outpouring of toys, gifts and financial aid for Cecilia, a response from strangers that Anthony Cichan called ``overwhelming.``

The first gift to arrive at the hospital, he said, was a brown teddy bear.

Until late Monday night, there was some doubt whether Cecilia was his granddaughter, one of several other youngsters missing in the crash, or a child from a car hit by the plane.

And not until he entered the hospital room, where the youngster rested, her face swollen almost beyond recognition, was Cichan sure that she was his granddaughter.

When he spotted her chipped front tooth, her braids and purple fingernail polish, which his wife had painted on only hours before, Cichan said he was positive: She was Cecilia.

He also was very sure, Cichan said, that his daughter-in-law had given her life to save Cecilia. ``I know she shielded her,`` he explained.

At the crash site, where Cecilia was found about 30 feet south of the plane`s cockpit, Girardot, 26, a resident at a Dearborn hospital for only two months, could not understand how her life was spared.

The bodies of her family were badly burned, Girardot recalled. Under the body of a woman, apparently Paula Cichan, was Cecilia. She was facing downward, and strapped into a plane`s seat by a belt. Dried blood coated her face.

Everywhere was death, except for the child`s cry. ``It was a miracle,``

said the physician from Battle Creek. ``The plane was absolutely destroyed.``